


Black Mambo

by FiniteWonderland



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Warm Bodies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Aziraphale is So Done (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Whipped (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Drunk Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff and Angst, Gabriel Being an Asshole (Good Omens), How Do I Tag, Librarian Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Possessive Crowley, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), The Author Regrets Everything, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-10-28 14:44:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20780306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiniteWonderland/pseuds/FiniteWonderland
Summary: Zombies are just mindless, flesh eating monsters, right?Perhaps not as much as the living believe them to be.Aziraphale will find this to be true whether he wants to or not, and believe him, he doesn't want to.





	1. Step in Line

**Author's Note:**

> So uh, Warm Bodies. And Good Omens. What could go wrong?  
A lot.  
A lot can go wrong.  
I LOVE the Warm Bodies book, it’s a treasure. I laughed way too much when I read it, and the movie is definitely in my top 5 favorites.  
If this has been done before, POINT ME IN THAT DIRECTION BECAUSE I AM A SEXUALLY DEVIOUS PERSON FOR ZOMBIES (says the 20 year old virgin lol don’t make fun of me pls my soft gay heart can’t take it).  
Also, I listened to a lot of the Black Panther soundtrack while writing this (mostly Killmonger’s theme even tho he isn’t my favorite character by far, Shuri gets that honor), so there’s that. Other songs include Black Mambo, Cocoa Hooves, Pork Soda (my favorite from them), Mama’s Gun, and Hazey all by Glass Animals, and the Goo Goo Dolls’ new album Miracle Pill. It’s so good go give it a listen. There are a few good Ineffable Husband fitting songs (Mainly Indestructible. I mean, come on, “I could be the dance on your dark side, you could be the light on my black nights.” Money, Fame & Fortune is a good one too). All the Goo Goo Dolls’ music is good, tbh. I can see Crowley getting down to their grunge music from the 90s.  
Oh, and obviously the Warm Bodies soundtrack. Good shit that is. 
> 
> Sidenote,  
This is a oneshot gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. So wrong, in fact, that it isn't a oneshot anymore. It'll be between 3 and 5 parts, I think.

If you think walking into a room and forgetting what you went in there for to begin with is frustrating, you should try being one of these guys. Can’t even remember what they did five minutes ago, let alone their names, lives, nothing. 

They just moan and groan and shuffle around, sometimes bumping into each other, without an apology on top of it! Bastards are absolutely mindless. Though, he could appreciate a good scuffle when old H and L would decide to come by his neck of the airport to try to pick a fight, which they never won. He was quite surprised upon the realization that those two mindless fools even had their first initials still. 

This was mainly because of the fact that they were quite fond of setting dead and rotten animals over their heads, and it escaped him as to why. Nasty, is what it is. And they were never caught dead apart. Pun intended. He liked to speculate that perhaps they’d been partners in life, and it had carried over into their deaths. Maybe they had remembered each other's initials instead of their own. He hadn’t heard of that happening, but he supposes anything is possible. 

And of course, for the fact that none of them were really the type to _gossip_. 

He considers himself to be the brightest of the bunch. Had to be, what with his snakeskin shoes and black clothes, granted they’re faded from years in the sun and covered in a thick layer of old blood and grime. The jacket he wore was stylish, and he knew it. He would get quite upset when new spatters of blood would join the old, as if it mattered anymore. His prized possession though, are the glasses perched on his nose, concealing his eyes behind black lenses. No one could tell if his curly shoulder-length hair was really that color, or just caked in blood. Both were plausible and reasonable when you’re in the situation that he is. 

It makes him wonder, though, what he’d been doing when he died. Some of them were perpetually nude, having died while in a bath or shower to try to make themselves feel better from the sickness that had ravaged their bodies, others were perpetually nude simply because they’d wanted to get one last fuck in and hadn’t counted on their hearts stopping in the process. That was a small percentage of them, anyhow. Most were clothed in what could be seen as comfortable clothes. At least the ones that had died in the initial outbreak of the sickness. Who would want to wear jeans or suits or tight fitted clothes while dying, afterall. Perhaps him, or maybe he hadn’t died in the initial outbreak at all, like most of the ones here. Perhaps he’d been shot when attempting to get into a safe house, or had been bitten on his way to one and had died as a result. He wished he could remember, it seemed like an important detail, to remember your own death. None of them did, so he shouldn’t be too hung up on it. 

Not to menton, he knows he’s the odd man out among them all. He’d snatched up a jet for himself not long after he’d followed the crowd to this airport. Not that any of them had been clamoring to snatch up prime real estate. No, they prefer to amble around amongst themselves, forever bumping into one another, without offered apologies or meaningful conversations. Drove him crazy within a day, that had. He swears if Hell were real, this is what it would have been like. Crowded, gloomy, having no real mental stimulation to speak of. It’s quite dreary if he had anything to say about it. 

So, he has this jet, and he’d stuffed it full of plants that he’d found or brought back after he’d went out for a food run with the others, and consequently his collection had begun to spill to the outside of the plane. It had been a learning curve, and he’d killed the first few plants he’d gotten, until he’d figured out, on a rainy day no less, that they needed _water_. 

He remembers that he used to need water. Things that were living always needed water.

So now he has the best plants in the airport. He’s actually quite proud of them. They line the seats and overhead compartments, turning the inside of the plane into a jungle. His favorite is the white striped spider plant by the door of the craft. It’s big and its many runners have infiltrated the soil in the nearby pots that harbor other plants. Greedy bastard. He likes that in a living organism. He’s absolutely captivated by the succulents that he’s brought home, and the little flowers they give off when they’re happy. The cacti are his second favorite plants, especially when they flower, and he’s got a soft spot for the elephant eared plants he keeps in the plane’s cockpit. He’d figure out eventually that they’d get too big to keep inside a plane, but today is not that day. 

Now, he has a hard time finding plants to bring home. They’d have to be small enough for him to cary (his arms are semi rotten, after all, and he’s quite spindly), and lasted this long into an apocalypse, meaning they’d have to be hardy and outside to get the rainwater that sprinkles down from the heavens. 

It would have to be a perfect storm, and usually his luck was not that good. Hence his currently dead status. 

It was a good thing that he’s dead, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to handle the mildew smell that comes with giving plants water when they’re seated on leather and fabric (and he can’t help that he spills water everywhere in the process, he isn’t as coordinated as he’d like to be). He’s smelt worse. It’s in the description. He’s sure he himself smells worse than some mildewed plane seats. 

Though, maybe that wouldn’t matter if his heart was still beating. He certainly wouldn’t be here of all places.

His favorite past time by far however, beside caring for his plants and hauling watering cans full of water around, is sitting inside an old Bentley that resides in the airport’s parking lot, and that’s where he happens to be now. Out of the Porches and Audis and Hondas and Volkswagens that litter the lot, it’s this particular Bentley that caught his eye. He’d even figured out how to start the bloody thing, to his immense delight. He enjoys the roar of the old engine, and the music that blasts out of its speakers, even if he has no idea what it’s called. He’s even taken a liking to the little angel that hangs from the rearview mirror. 

Through a lot of trial and error, he’d learned to work all the knobs, and had even come as close as something dead could to panic when he’d shut the music off on one of his scientific explorations. It had taken him an hour to figure out how to turn the damned thing back on. He’s still convinced that was the worst hour of his dead life yet. 

One thing he hadn’t done, however, was try to drive it, though he wishes that he could. 

At a bang on the window of the car, he sluggishly turns his head to find a slim face framed with long, dirty chocolate hair and pewter eyes behind a pair of circular, albeit clear but dusty, glasses peering at him, a hand resting on the glass next to her bloody face. 

He grunts at her, which she hears and groans right back at him while she slowly pulls herself away from the window, giving him an expectant look all the while. 

Giving a moan of protest, he shuts the engine off and pushes the door to the car open.

“Food,” She grumbles out before he’s even all the way out of the car. “Going. City.” 

He gives her an affirmative grunt, and they both turn to begin their way to the airport entrance where the hunting party would be passing through in a matter of minutes. 

Hopefully H and L wouldn’t be part of said party. That happened sometimes, and it made the entire trip unbearable to say the least. 

An is the type of girl everyone else is jealous over. She’s smart, smart enough to have the first two letters of her name. A real rarity. He could see that she would get as frustrated as he would when she knew what she wanted to say, but couldn’t quite get the syllables past her lips. He’d been anything but friendly toward her, and she’d still taken quite a liking to him. To the point that a time or two she’d brought him back a flower with the intention of it being a plant. That bit escaped her, that just picking a flower would not mean that it would continue to live if you gave it water. The sentiment was still there, however, and he could appreciate it for what it was. She seemed to be the only other person around that took an interest in his hobby that didn’t involve eating the living. She had just as many quirks as him, and she quite likes to sit around his jet, a book propped in her lap that she’d found, even if she couldn’t read it. That in itself was quite amusing. He’d even left a few rows on the plane open for her and her books that she decided to store there for safekeeping. 

After her persistence and her finally growing on him, they always attended the same hunting parties, and he’d even saved her head on one occasion. She was like an annoyingly pleasant younger sister, and they’d fed off each other in the sense that they gave each other hope and companionship where many others had begun to lose it and hadn’t known what it meant to have a companion to keep oneself company. Perhaps maybe beside H and L. But they were too dim witted to realise that for what it was. 

He thinks perhaps what they had came as close to love as something dead could get. He knew he loved her, and he hoped she loved him in the same way, in the brotherly light he thought of her in. 

This is one reason why his and An’s bodies happen to still be so fresh, even after the three years it’d been since the virus spread. More and more of them had begun to decay, and it was rare to see others as fresh as him and An. They could probably pass for living if they got cleaned up enough, which is a funny thought to him. Playing living, instead of playing dead. It makes him wish he still had the capacity for laughter. Dark humor amuses him to no end, even now. 

He takes An’s hand in his own cold one without thinking as they travel along, and she grunts, almost in amusement, while she swings their hands back and forth between them. He can imagine her skipping about, ready to eat, her pretty face lit up in an amused half smile while she teases him about being sentimental, and what would the others think? Not a damn thing, he’d tell her. She’s his annoying sister and nothing else to it. 

They amble after the others, who had just begun to get a move on toward the towering buildings of London. Parts of the city had been sectioned off with chain link and plywood, others had been built with a more sturdy solution, and there were always armed guards posted on the walls. They wouldn’t hesitate to open fire on a group of corpses. Everyone and their mothers were out to shoot them these days. It’s actually quite stressful and danger filled for them to hunt, and even now bigger groups didn’t guarantee safety, just that everyone would get a smaller meal at the end of it. 

The unoccupied parts of the city were left to them. He’d picked up a few memories over the years from the bits and pieces of brain he’d consumed, and many people believed, this being London, afterall, that there must be some kind of government camp going on, and if they came here, they’d be safe after dealing with hordes of the dead for so long. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Some of them had been doing quite well where they’d been, and if they had stayed there instead of travel all this way, they would probably still be alive. No, instead they decided to make the journey here just to die for a rumor that had been floating on the wind since this entire thing began. A man that had traveled all the way from Scotland had been the most interesting meal he himself had ever consumed, and he almost regretted killing him after the fact. Almost. The man’s life had been filled with happy memories and warmth and laughter and love, and even when everything went to Hell he’d still been filled with that warm happy light, and it had been intoxicating. He’d never felt that alive. Nothing since had held a candle to that, and even though those memories are faded now, they’re still more vivid than any other memory he’s managed to hold on to. 

As much as he’d love to skip out on meals, anyhow, he’d seen first hand what an extended period of time without a meal could do to one of them, and it wasn’t pleasant. He wasn’t ready to find out what would happen when he died for real. As bad as eating the living made him feel, he knew he couldn’t help it. It’s the way things just are. This new hunger, it was all consuming, and if they did not give in to it, they withered away just as much as a living person without food would. They all looked gaunt, that was just part of the job description, but looking gaunt and actually starving are two totally different things. 

They’re painfully slow. It takes them forever to get to where they’re headed, incapable of going any faster than a shuffled amble. They’ll be lucky to make it back to the airport before nightfall. 

Which, to be fair, might be better hunting anyhow… 

It was also getting harder and harder for them to find meals, just as it was harder for him to find new plants. There just aren’t as many living as there used to be. It seemed like only stragglers that couldn’t or wouldn’t join encampments or parties from those same encampments that were out to find supplies were the only living left, and in reality, they were. Very rarely were they able to find a party passing through, or a group that hadn’t built their barriers correctly. 

They can smell the living on the wind, getting stronger and stronger the closer they get. They had sectioned off the best parts of the city, so they were certainly there, but whether they were out and about and able to be caught was another story entirely. The dead around him groan in excitement from the smell, picking up their pace that much more, if it were even possible. He doesn’t know if they quite realise that just because they could smell living didn’t mean that they were guaranteed a meal today. 

Hours and hours of walking through graffitied streets and finding a few stragglers of their own kind, and finally he smells it. Living. Close, inside a building. The trail is faint but fresh. They hadn’t been here long and probably wouldn’t be here for much longer.

His throat burns and the hunger in his gut becomes unbearable, crippling. He looks to An, and she smells it too. She gives a low hiss, and they both amble forward, catching the attention of half of their group of twenty as he stumbles over a glass bottle, sending it skittering away and out of their path. The other half of the group continues on, oblivious, as they climb the steps and push the filthy glass doors open, all trying to rush in at once, their hungry moans drowning out any thought that they might have been capable of creating. Down the isles they go, and in no time there are screams of alarm and shouts, gunshots, comotion. Instantly a few of their own drop, and An and himself waste no time tackling the nearest man to them, pinning him down and knocking the pistol in his hand away while An bashes and breaks his head open and the man’s body falls limp. An digs into his chest and belly while he goes right for the brain. 

The brain is like a drug to them, as addictive as heroin. It makes them feel alive, which he, for one, hasn’t felt for himself since he died. Every time since the Scottish man, he’d been trying to find someone that had been just as happy, that had been so bright and warm during their life, and that had yet to happen. Perhaps this will be the one. 

In goes a big chunk of cortex and hippocampus, and his mind explodes with color and emotion and life. The chaos around him falls away, and this man is given a name, an identity. 

Michael Gatewood*. A miserable childhood of a little girl flashes through his mind, the fear of religious parents and retaliation, of being who she knew he was. The first thrill of dressing in men’s clothes when no one had been home, then stashing them away underneath his bed, terrified his mother would find them. The confrontation when it had all come out, being kicked out and never talked to again. The thrill of finally beginning hormones and having top surgery and fleeting glances between an angelic platinum blond with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen in his psychology class at uni. First kisses, warmth and love and acceptance, first sexual act, first everything. 

There was where all that fire lie. That blond. With a pretty smile and doe eyes that lit up everything around him. Soft curls that could never be tamed, and just enough pudge to make him cuddleable and soft, warm. 

_Aziraphale._

That’s his name. 

Then… _This_. Screams, running through streets clogged with traffic to find Aziraphale. Running because he had been sitting in unmoving traffic while people that looked comatose on their feet ripped into their screaming victims. Aziraphale was supposed to be taking his final exam of the spring semester. 

Almost being bitten, escaping just in time. Finding Aziraphale holed up in the class he’d been taking his test in, the professor and the half of the class that hadn’t been done with the test when chaos erupted all huddled together in a back corner, a few desks turned on their sides to form a barricade. He’d only been let in because he’d had this same professor and she knew who he was. 

Aziraphale had practically jumped, sobbing and terrified, into his arms, and they sat and sobbed with the others for hours, until they didn’t have a choice but to leave. The military had taken control of the Soho area of the city and all the way down to the river, and that’s where they went, and they’d managed to make it just in time, before the soldiers had shut the gates on the rest of the civilians and watched as they’d been massacred. 

That night had been the hardest. Everyone had went to bed in a few office buildings that the soldiers had directed them to, tired, thirsty and hungry, the only blankets they’d had had been rummaged from various stores that had been closed off within the perimeter of the blockade. There hadn’t been enough to go around, and they’d been given to the children and elderly first. Needless to say, they hadn’t had a way to stay warm other than their shared body heat and the sweater Aziraphale happened to have worn to class to keep semi warm in the frigid classroom. It was the comfort of being in eachothers arms that had kept them sane, even when neither of them had been able to sleep. Very few people at all had been able to sleep that night, cramped and uncomfortable with hundreds of breathing bodies crammed in all around them and gunshots and bombs going off outside. 

At daybreak, the soldiers had them up and working. No rest for them as they pillaged the entire perimeter for supplies. They worked hard until dusk, and most of the people there had collapsed in exhaustion. Aziraphale had been one of them, and all Michael could do was lay there and watch him sleep as dread, uncertainty and anxiety bubbled in his gut. 

From there it only got harder as the soldiers put them through their own type of boot camp, training them to be soldiers and putting the people that couldn’t be soldiers on other tasks. Some had been assigned to construction to aid in building the walls and the canals that would be run to St. James park where they’d be ripping up the turf to grow crops. Most of the building tops had been turned into rooftop gardens for crops as well. They were always busy, always doing something. 

Aziraphale just couldn’t keep up with the work they’d wanted him to do, and as a consequence, had been assigned to planning lessons for the kids and being the “town’s” librarian and book expert as well as record keeper. This job suited him much better, and it meant that Michael seen less and less of him as time went by. Aziraphale was always just as happy to see him as the last time they’d seen each other, but it was taking a toll on Michael. 

This entire ordeal was changing him. Aziraphale might still be the bright bubbly lovale person he’d always been, that was just the type of person he was, but Michael was changing. Becoming angry, with God, the world, himself, his worthless parents. Angry that he’d never see his parents again and that he’d never have a chance to make amends with them. 

He could tell Aziraphale had noticed the change in him, and Michael just… Didn’t love him anymore. And he hates himself for it. How could he not love that amazing beautiful person that loved him so much, that looked at him with such joy on his face every time he laid eyes on him? 

Aziraphale had noticed that change, and had signed up to go on this run with Michael. Signed up to prove a point. That he’d get whatever it was that was wrong out of Michael in any way he could, and prove to all the people whispering about him that he was useful and that he could take care of himself. Michael hadn’t liked it, had went to Gabriel to beg him to reject Aziraphale, but he’s just laughed and sneered, claiming it was about time his “fat ass did something productive that contributed to the wellbeing of the compound.” Michael had wanted to hit him, wanted to rip into him and make him pay for his words. But he’d just turned and walked away. 

There was nothing he could do now. 

Leaving the compound at the head of his party, Aziraphale at his side brandishing a pistol, directing them and informing them of the items on their list, fear prickling at the back of his neck at the first screech, being pinned down, and nothing. 

He can feel his head jerk as he’s brought back to reality. It had felt like an eternity, but it had only been a fraction of a second. 

“Michael?” He hears, and his head jerks in the direction of the call. 

It’s _him_. 

_Aziraphale._

Putting the bit of brain that is in his hand into the pocket of his jacket, he stumbles into a stand, chaos still going on around him. His pewter eyes hidden behind the black lenses of the glasses don’t leave the man as he takes a stumbling step forward. 

His platinum blond curls circle his head like a halo, and all he can think of is the little angel hanging from the rearview mirror of the Bentley. He’s an angel. 

The look he has on his face doesn’t belong on an angel. 

He looks worried and sick, his brow furrowed, his lips set in a firm frown, his eyes sparkling with tears as he calls out the person’s name he _thinks_ loves him. 

He takes another step forward, and another, until Aziraphale’s eyes lock onto him, and he freezes, the gun held to his chest and his shoulders hunched in. He holds the gun out at him, firing, and the bullet grazes his left bicep. He pulls the trigger again, and nothing. He slides down the wall, pulling a knife from the military boots he’s wearing, and flings it. It imbeds in his shoulder. 

What a lousy shot this angel is. And he’s out of weapons. 

Aziraphale puts his face in his knees as he sinks to his own knees in front of him, captivated.

He wants to say something. Anything to get him to look up and smile that radiant smile of his. He wants to see it for himself. Michael might not have been captivated by that smile anymore, but he certainly _is._

Aziraphale is shaking violently, his hands tangled in his mess of curls tightly. He wants to tell him to not do that, to not hurt himself, that it’s _okay_, he’s _safe._

He tries to say something as he lifts his hands to the sides of Aziraphale’s head, but all that escapes his lips is a moan, and he almost winces at the jerk Aziraphale gives, if he was even capable of such a thing. 

He tries again. “Z… Zir… ‘phale…”

The man freezes, and lifts his head up ever so slowly, eyes wide and shocked, unblinking. Eyes as blue as the sky gaze at him, confused and afraid. 

“S… Safe,” He says in what he hopes is a matter of fact way, but more tears just slip down Aziraphale’s round cheeks. 

He can hear the commotion begin to die down behind him, and the sniffs his companions are giving. 

He pulls the knife from his shoulder before letting it drop, his fingers reaching into the fresh cut to douse his fingers is rotting black blood. Ever so slowly, he smears it down Aziraphale’s pale cheeks and down his throat, all the way down to the tan coat he’d worn, then did it once more, all while Aziraphale is shocked still, lips parted and slack jawed. 

He takes a deep inhale, and his companions behind him are doing the same. He’s smelling exactly what they are. 

Nothing. 

Nothing but the smell of death and the smell of bodies that had just been alive. The room is doused in old blood and intestines, the smell aiding to mask the scent of the living. He knows what comes next. Their hunger satiated, they’ll gather up what leftovers they can to take back to the bonies and children that had been turned, as they couldn’t fend for themselves on the best of occasions and had to be taught to hunt, not being instilled with the same instinct an adult of their own kind had. 

The bonies on a few occasions had attempted to recruit him as a teacher, but it upset him, or as upset as a dead man could be, to see children like that. He didn’t know why, but it was the children, so lost and alone and out of place, that made his dead heart ache. He knew of anyone on this entire planet, that they are the ones that deserved this fate the least. 

He takes Aziraphale’s arm and gently pulls him up, the man following with little resistance, his eyes still blown wide and tears falling down paper pale cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Yes, Archangel Michael is this character. I wanted to keep this as much in line with canon characters as I could, and that meant not making up some random man to be Aziraphale’s love interest before Crowley and Gabriel needed to be handy to run the compound (or that would have definitely been him instead because I see the Gabriel/Aziraphale ship has somewhat of a basis, even tho I am 100% without stray for Ineffable Husbands.)
> 
> College, statistics in particular, is kicking my ass, but I'm enjoying writing this and have a bunch to say, so hopefully updates are semi regular.


	2. Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me just start by saying, I did not mean to take this long (I didn't even get to where I wanted to end the chapter). The last few weeks, this week in particular, have been busy and stress filled and horrible (finding out your dog has congestive heart failure the same week that you have midterms in pretty much every class blows let me tell you [luckily his medication is working already, so that's a plus], on top of job hunting and doing a transfer application). Since I finally had a lull after all these tests, I was able to finish up this chapter, thankfully. 
> 
> And thank you so much to everyone who left a review! They honestly made my day and I enjoyed seeing them, and I apologize that I was unable to respond. I'm hoping to have some time to do so this time around. They were (obviously) greatly appreciated <3. 
> 
> If music is your thing while you read, I suggest Never Mess With Sunday by Yppah, All Through the Night, Anthem and Wolf Drawn all by Emancipator (this is my study music genre because otherwise I can’t concentrate because I sing along to my usual music and I can’t help it. It’s good music to read to too.)
> 
> Last chapter was named after Step in Line by the Goo Goo Dolls, and this chapter is named after Machine by Imagine Dragons.

It didn’t escape him how Aziraphale began to shake violently as they’d passed Michael’s body. Well, what was left of it. His face was still recognizable, after all, even if his cranium was no longer in one piece. After that, he’d went comatose on his feet. He was shaking, sure, but he stumbled and ambled just as much as the rest of them, and all he did was stare ahead as tears dripped from his eyes like water out of a dam, washing tear tracks into the smeared blood on his cheeks. 

Despite this being a good thing, as this was keeping him in line with the rest of them and inconspicuous, it worried him. Michael had never seen him like this, this was something new. 

It didn’t escape his attention either that An was pointedly staring. She was on one side of him, and Aziraphale on the other. He almost couldn’t blame her, as fresh faces are almost non existent nowadays, simply because none of them had any self control, and they ate too much of the body to allow reanimation or they’d ate the brain. He pitied the ones that had been allowed to reanimate and keep their brains, as more often than not half their bodies were gone, and it was a sad sight to see. They all believed, anyhow, that he was just a new addition to the family. 

It didn’t stop him from putting himself in An’s line of sight, and she gave an irritated groan and turned her gaze forward at last. 

He could tell when Aziraphale, despite his comatose state, began to tire, as his steps grew slower, his breath labored. This bothered him more, as he couldn’t stop to let him rest, he had to keep them going with the group. Luckily Aziraphale didn’t protest, even if they fell behind the group ever so slightly. 

Just after nightfall they made it back to the airport, only the light of the moon illuminating their surroundings. Aziraphale began to wake up at this point, his breathing becoming ragged with panic and tripping over his own feet in the darkness. He kept a firm hand on his arm nevertheless, guiding him through the swaths of walking dead bodies and out to his jet. 

An had decided to wander off when they’d got back, thankfully, and he urges Aziraphale up the steps ahead of him, which he stumbles upon multiple times. He pulls the door to the jet open and in they both go to the darkness of the plane. 

He hears Aziraphale give a strangled sound as the door shuts, and a plant topple over before the bang of a body hitting the plane floor. A sob fills the dark space. 

“O… Okay…?” He asks, his eyes catching shadows in the darkness. A sob is his answer. 

He can feel… Something flutter in his chest as he picks his hands up. He doesn’t… He’s never felt this before. What is it? 

“Sa.... fe,” He can feel his voice almost… _warble_. “Home.” 

That does it. Sobs, ugly sobs that he knows are wracking Aziraphale’s body, but the man doesn’t stop. He keeps _crying_ and _sobbing_ and he _doesn’t know what to do to fix it._

He doesn’t mean to, but his backside hits the floor of the plane and he just… Sits there. He hasn’t had to deal with this before. He has no clue what he’s doing. He may have successfully snuck the human in, but now he had to deal with the aftermath, and he had no clue what he’d just gotten himself into. 

He definitely should have thought this through better. 

This is going down like a _lead fucking balloon._

And now, he can’t think at all. His brain is stalled for Hell’s sake! What would…. Oh. 

Hot chocolate. 

Hot chocolate always made Aziraphale feel better. 

But he doesn’t know how to make hot chocolate! He doesn’t even think he has access to the things to make it _with!_ Oh, what a predicament he’d gotten himself into. Bloody fucking _brilliant._

Bring the living home with no way to care for him. 

Smart of him. Real brilliant. Fantastic! 

Unsure of what to do, he rises to his feet and reaches up to pull a blanket out of one of the suitcases in an overhead compartment. On his exploration of the plane, he’d nosed around every inch of it, and consequently knew a good portion of what the plane held, even if he’d forgotten some of it. Michael’s memory of being cold and left without a blanket as Aziraphale and himself tried to huddle underneath a sweatshirt to keep warm is at the forefront of his mind. He certainly doesn’t want Aziraphale to be cold if he doesn’t have to be. Unfolding the blanket, he haphazardly drapes it over the crying man and heads for the cockpit of the plane. He couldn’t just leave Aziraphale here by himself, after all. What if An decided to stop by? Or H and L decided to pay him a visit? He doubts if that happened that would pan out well. But Aziraphale obviously needed some space, and he could at least do that for him. It was probably a good thing that he couldn’t talk more than a few syllables at a time. This kept him quiet, after all, even if it frustrates him to no end. 

Oh, right. He still has a big chunk of Michael’s brain. Maybe this time could be productive after all. 

Plopping down into the pilot’s seat, he reaches into his pocket to pull out another piece of the brain, quickly bringing it up to set into his mouth. He enjoys the squish of it between his teeth as he’s enveloped by another onslaught of memories. 

They’re gazing up at the stars, him and Aziraphale, on top of the building they use as a school for the kids. 

They’d been gazing at the constellations, as it was past lights out and the current predicament meant that there was no light pollution to contend with. They’re seeing more stars than they’d ever seen before, and it was wonderful.

Then Aziraphale just had to go and ruin it. 

“You think they’re still trying to find a cure?” He’d said after a few quiet moments, and the happiness in Michael’s stomach turns to irritation. 

“_There is no goddamn cure,_ Aziraphale. Quit bringing it up. If there was they would have found it by now,” Michael can barely contain his snappish tone. Aziraphale is quiet, and he knows he’d hurt his feelings, but he can’t bring himself to apologize. He’d went out on runs to gather lab supplies, medications, all of it, so that the one scientist they’d managed to snag could try to find a cure. He was essentially one of the few people on the medical front line, and he was tired of hearing about it, because it was never going to happen. They were doomed to live like this forever until they were either completely gone or the virus burnt itself out. 

As he scowls up at the sky, Aziraphale stiffly gets to his feet and heads back down inside to the apartment he occupies. 

Michael doesn’t say a word to stop him. 

He also doesn’t speak to him for almost two weeks afterward, and Aziraphale doesn’t bring it up again. At least, not to him.

This memory is more recent, crisper, less faded. 

“My dear, I really should be getting back to the kids, Adam can get-”

“_Would you shut up?_ This is going to take no more than five minutes, and you’re the only person that isn’t busy. I can’t very bloody well come out here without someone on my back, can I?” 

Aziraphale hangs his head at his snapping voice, a military grade assault rifle in his hands and crossing his front. His hold on it is awkward, inexperienced. It looks so out of place in the blond’s grip, even to Michael, who at this point was beginning to lead Aziraphale on, if for no other reason than because no one else had quite captured his fancy yet. It made him feel beyond shitty, but breaking Aziraphale’s heart would make him feel even worse.

“No, I suppose not.” 

The guilt clawing in his chest makes his face and tone soften, and he tries to soothe the creased brow off Aziraphale’s face with his words. “Why are you so worried about Adam, anyway? He’s sixteen, the boy can handle himself.” 

The crease doesn’t leave Aziraphale’s brow, and he doesn’t look up. “He’s quite the trouble maker, you see. Mischievous little devil, and Pepper doesn’t help his case one bit. He gets the soldiers in quite a tizzy if he’s left alone too long, and his mother is busy in the kitchen most of the time…” He trails off, realizing that he’s rambling. 

“Just relax, Zira. We’ll be back inside the walls in less than ten minutes, I just have to patch this gap the construction missed. They think the kids have been using this hole to go for joy rides around the city, if that helps you any,” And he goes to work sealing the five foot by two foot hole with cement that he’d carried out in a bucket, rocks and chain link. He’d gotten it almost done when Aziraphale called his name in a shaky tone. 

“What?” He gripes as he turns around. 

He’s met with the sight of a group of corpses. They’re sniffing the air. They can smell them, but they haven’t seen them yet. He and Aziraphale are halfway stashed behind a dilapidated building, and they’re on the next block over, just clearing the corner. “Come here right now,” He says lowly to Aziraphale, and the blond takes slow steps backward, his shoulders slouched inward, the gun held higher up on his chest. He crouches down slightly behind Michael, and Michael reaches back to grab the gun out of Aziraphale’s hands. He gladly offers up the gun to Michael, then leans into his back lightly. Michael knows its to comfort himself, so he allows him to do so. 

“They’re going to figure out we’re here, or another group is going to come up behind us. We need to make a run for it back to the gates so we can get in and the guards can mow them down before they have us blocked in. There’s too many of them.” 

“I- I won’t make it!” Aziraphale says in a tiny but panicked voice. 

“Adrenaline does wonders, you’ll make it, especially if they start chasing us. Go! I’ve got your back. As quick as you can,” Aziraphale pulls himself off Michael’s back and to his feet, watching the corpses wearily as he shuffles his feet toward the way he needed to go, then with a few huffs to steele himself, he jumps into a run, albeit a stiff, awkward bastardization of a run, but a run all the same. 

Michael isn’t but a few steps behind when the group’s heads collectively turn to their movements, and they lunge forward, moans increasing in pitch and volume as they give chase. 

And Michael is correct. At the sound of the hungry moans, Aziraphale’s strides increase as adrenaline shoots through his veins, his pace increasing in time. In a few bounds they are in stride with one another, and turn into the final stretch to the gate in what seemed too long. Their shouts don’t go unnoticed by the on duty guards, and they have their guns drawn and gates open and ready for them. Gunshots erupt as the gates slam behind them, and before they know it, they’ve tumbled into the dirt. 

Michael slaps his hand down onto Aziraphale’s heaving chest, feeling the violent tremors under his hand that rack his body as they both lay there, dirt smudged on their faces and in their hair, ground into their clothes. “You- ya gotta get up, Zira. You gotta walk it off, you can’t lay there like that. It isn’t good for your body.” 

“Aziraphale? Did you see corpses?” The voice of a curious teen sidles up beside them. “Are you alright?” 

“I… Oh, dear,” Aziraphale can’t seem to catch his breath. Michael only just sees the little black and white terrier that had sidled up on Aziraphale’s other side, his tail going a mile a minute as he sniffs at Aziraphale’s dampening face. 

“What are you doing here, kid? You know this area is off limits to you,” Michael sits up, putting on his authoritative mask and voice. 

“Correction, it’s off limits to other kids. I, on the other hand, am being considered for the new dog training operation,” He says cheekily, turning his attention back to Aziraphale. What a little shit. 

“Not with that little mutt, you aren’t,” Michael says, but the boy ignores him. 

“You haven’t answered me, ‘Ziraphale. Are you alright?” 

“Oh, yes, I’m alright. Just tickety-boo. Don’t you worry about me, dear. Now go on, get back to the school building. I’ll be there momentarily,” Aziraphale only manages this through wheezing breaths. Michael could tell he wasn’t fine. Aziraphale had been shaken to his bones. 

After that, armed guards were posed on the entire perimeter of the wall. 

He was watching Aziraphale from the corner of one of the open windows as he interacted with the group of older trouble making teens that gave anyone else trouble. He had a way with them, and old Madam Tracy was just quirky enough to be in their good graces as well. 

Adam was in the throws of an exciting tale, now that they’d been found out for sneaking out at night into the city after lights out. That had been put a stop to, of course, but now the kids were free to share their stories, to Aziraphale’s horror and Madam Tracy’s amusement. 

“I swear, after we climbed that fire escape, they just went right on by under us!”

“_Adam!_ You’re lucky they weren’t skeletons!” Aziraphale has his hands on his cheeks, his eyes blown wide. 

“But they weren’t, Zira. We can handle the regular corpses any day,” Pepper says proudly from her seat on Aziraphale’s desk. 

“You lot coulda been blocked into an alley or street, what then?” Madam Tracy says, her voice filled with humor. 

“Oh, don’t egg them on, you crazy old biddy!” Aziraphale teases her. “I’m just glad you kids can’t get out there anymore. That was so irresponsible and dangerous of you!” 

“Oh, you needn’t worry. We were pretty smart about it when we did go out,” Wensleydale says. “Snuck knives and stuff out with us, were quiet. I wouldn’t let them leave without a way to defend ourselves.” Warlock, who is sitting knee to knee with Wensleydale, rolls his eyes with a nod of agreement, exasperation plain to see on his face. 

“There was that one time a corpse almost got ya, though, Wensleydale! Nearly got a hold of your arm cause ya didn’t see ‘im!”

“Brian! You weren’t supposed to say that!” Pepper hisses at him, kicking out with her foot to catch him in his shoulder. 

“Hey!” He cries indignantly at her. “Don’t tell anyone, but we sneak into the kitchens sometimes, too. Late at night. Have to sneak past the patrols and all.” 

“Snitch,” Warlock cuffs him over the head with his arm. 

“And you lot haven’t brought me or Madam Tracy any of your spoils?” Aziraphale says, looking hurt.

The kids are quiet for a moment. “We can,” Adam begins. “You aren’t gonna try to stop us?” 

“Oh, heavens no. I want to see how long it takes them to catch you. You lot would be amazing on a covert operations team. I have half a mind to recommend you, though I definitely don’t want you out on supply runs.” 

And Aziraphale is correct, they would be, the damned little buggers. 

He decides he won’t say anything as he turns away from the window. Aziraphale has always been the one to capture the hearts of the wicked, and now is no exception. 

With that, he slips the remainder of the brain back into his pocket. Aziraphale really is an angel on earth. No wonder he’s so terrified. Every time he’s ventured outside of the wall he’s come in contact with corpses, and he was merely lucky that nothing happened to him the first time. He guarantees the angelic man would have died today had he not been there. This thought bothers him immensely. He’d be dead and more likely than not his brain would have been consumed by a corpse that had no idea exactly what they had, and if not, he’d be like him. Mindless, a monster. Though, he knows he would have been just as taken with the man, and he would have still remembered his name! He would have never let him forget his name like he’d forgotten his own. Though, there was no guarantee that he’d have been able to tell him what it was to begin with. 

It takes awhile for the whimpers of his guest to die down, then it seems as if he isn’t even there. He knows he must have fallen asleep. He wishes he could sleep. It would be so much better than this, never sleeping, never being able to pass the time. Instead, he just sits and watches the days and nights blur into one in a never ending and unbroken cycle. It really is quite depressing. 

When the sky begins to lighten over the horizon, he gives a groan as he pulls himself to his feet. 

Watering time. 

Ignoring his supposedly sleeping guest, he wonders out of the plane and down the flight of steps. He’d found some empty oil drums after his discovery of plants needing water, and they’d been filled with rain water. So, technically not empty, just empty of oil. He’d managed to push them over, empty them, and roll them over to the plane, where they’d sat to collect rainwater. On days the drums were depleted of water, he’d wander down to the nearby river* to fill his watering cans with, even though it took ten times as long. 

His greedy bastards that were called plants needed to be watered, after all. 

Picking up a metal watering can in each hand from beside the drums, he fills them and hauls them back up to the plane’s entrance. He’d left the door open for easy access. Setting one can down, he goes about pouring water over the plants, beginning with the spider plant. He can now easily see the plant Aziraphale had tripped over, it’s contents scattered about the plane floor. It’s the small palm tree he keeps by the door. 

He places it back into its pot, then spills water over it. He makes a small frustrated sound in the back of his throat as some of the water lands outside of the pot. 

“Wha-” A throat clears. “What are you doing?” It’s quiet, hoarse, filled with as much curiosity as fear. He looks up at the blond man. He’s sitting up, the blanket clutched to his chest as if it’s a shield. His eyes are swollen and red rimmed, his cheek creased from where the folds of his clothing had dug into his skin, his hair mussed, dried black blood flaking but still clinging to his skin. 

He gives a groan as he slowly pushes himself back to his feet. “Water,” He drawls out, walking past the man to pour water over the next row of plants. Aziraphale watches him curiously as he goes back and forth with watering cans multiple times until the last can is empty and all of the plants had been watered. 

“What are you…?” Aziraphale murmurs as he walks past to put the watering cans back in their spot by the oil drums. What is he? A corpse. Duh. What else could he possibly be? Well, he is what he is, and he knows he certainly isn’t completely mindless like the living believe them to be. Some of them, that is of course debatable. Some were more mindless than others. Probably had something to do with when they’d been alive. He certainly isn’t claiming he was some big shot smart person when he was alive, quite the contrary, he was sure. But some living were just down right so stupid that it was a wonder as to how they managed to stay alive on a day to day basis. 

Aziraphale is tentatively walking about the plane when he again enters, the early morning light shining through the plane windows to illuminate the entirety of the space. It catches on his hair, making the white curls glow like an angel’s halo. 

He makes a delighted little sound in the back of his throat when he finds the row of seats with books piled on and around it, forgetting himself as he picks up a small stack into his hands and shuffles them around to catch sight of their titles. He sits in An’s seat next to the window. 

His moan follows into his words. “An’s book...s.” 

Aziraphale remembers where he is and the situation he’s in at his groaned out words. He stiffens, the little smile falling off his lips and his hands down to his lap as he looks up at him with wide eyes. 

“Can… read?” He asks. Reading is another thing he wishes he could do. Their brains just didn’t have the capacity for it. He could see the letters, recognize them as words, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying. They were just a set of indecipherable symbols to him, and it frustrated him to no end, and he knew it frustrated An more so. 

“Mhmm,” Aziraphale hums after a moment, looking at him strangely, his brows creased but his eyes still reflecting the fear he felt. 

“Won’t…. Eat,” He manages to get out as he pulls the plane’s door shut behind him before taking a few shuffling steps forward. He’s tired of Aziraphale being scared of him. He wants to see him smile that radiant smile of his and be comfortable with him, to touch him and curl into his side while he reads and sips on his hot chocolate. He is a very affectionate and touchy person, from what he’d gathered from Michael’s memories. He always wanted to be touching Michael, even when Michael would get irritated at him and push him away. Even when Michael was raging mad at him and spewed insults at him. An angel, a pure angel that didn’t deserve that in the least. 

Aziraphale just cocks his head at him ever so slightly, his lips pulling downward, calculating. 

“Why would you save me?” He says quietly, as if he’s afraid to speak at a normal volume, as if it might set him off and make him go back on his promise. 

He… can’t answer that. 

He can’t form the amount of syllables or string them together coherently enough to do so. Plus, he doubts Aziraphale would appreciate the fact that he’d ate his boyfriend, even if An had been the one to administer the fatal blow. 

Well, this is certainly a predicament he’d gotten himself into. 

How lovely. 

So instead, he just gives a shrug. Good enough, he supposes. Diverse indicators, shrugs. Almost as diverse as a wink. Better than making a fool of himself as he tries to explain that he’d found Aziraphale to be the most lovely thing he’d ever seen, and he’d seen him at all his glory through the memories of his dead boyfriend. 

Aziraphale gives a quiet sigh as he opens up one of the books, leaning against the glass of the window. 

The handle to the door jiggles behind him, and Aziraphale shoots up straight, his eyes even more panicked as they find first him, then skitter off in every direction, trying to find a place to run. 

He moves faster than he thinks he ever has outside of pursuing a living, and pushes the door open to shoo An backward and away from the entrance. She gives a confused groan as he shuts the plane door behind him. She points to the door, giving a grunt. ‘Book time!’ he could almost hear her say. 

He shakes his head. She gives a low rumble in the back of her throat and tries to push past him. He blocks her, giving a low grumble back. “No.” 

“Books!” 

“Not… now,” He stares her down from behind his shades, and even covered he knows his eyes have an affect on her. His eyes have always been his primary intimidation tactic, and it has served him well, especially with the bonies and H and L. 

An gives an irritated growl, glaring at him from behind her dusty owl glasses, then turns and hobbles on down the steps. With a grunt, he heads back into the plane, shutting the door firmly behind himself. 

Aziraphale is gone from his seat. He can’t help but cock his head at that. Where’d he go? 

“Go-one,” His voice crackles as he tries to raise it. There's a shuffling noise, grumble, then a halo of blonde curls pops out from the plane’s bathroom, cautious gaze sweeping around the plant filled space. A frown pulls at his lips as he gazes at him with eyes still rimmed in red from crying the night before, eyes hard and nervous. The crinkle in his brow has become almost permanent. With a huff, he returns to the abandoned seat, once again picking up the book and refusing to let his eyes wander over to him. 

Oh, Michael had seen this. Though, he doesn’t think Aziraphale is particularly mad at him, not like when he’d been mad at Michael and acted this way toward him. He’s confused, unsure of what to do, what steps to take next. He doesn’t know the full scope of his predicament, so he’s trying to reign it in, see what steps he can take next, calculating. He’s trying to act standoffish, and failing. He looks more like a pouting child as he glares down at the book in his lap. 

And he swears he himself isn’t pouting because he can’t figure Aziraphale out, he isn’t. 

A grumble fills the space, and he hardly has time to ponder what it is as Aziraphale’s face pinkens and he brings his knees to his chest, his eyes wide and embarrassed. He pointedly ignores his presence. 

“That?” 

Aziraphale glares at him from over the edge of his book. He grunts in the back of his throat at that look. 

“.... Eat?” He guesses. He knows that the living have to eat more often than they do. The glare is covered by the book. He’s quiet for a moment, contemplating. There is a cafeteria in the airport. It’s a gamble if anything would be edible for a living, but it’s worth a shot. “No one… in,” He says, before turning on his heel as gracefully as possible and heading out the plane door. 

He nearly gets sidetracked multiple times as he weaves his way through the swaths of walking dead bodies, but he keeps reminding himself that he’s on a mission. Gotta get his angel something to eat. Can’t let him go hungry, now can he? 

He’s disappointed when he makes it to the large cafeteria. As there was no power, everything was nasty, rotten, molded, or as dried and hard as a damned rock, and had been for years. He could just give a sigh, if the dead were capable of such a thing. But… There’s that rack full of bags and packaged processed pastries over there. He doesn’t know what they are, or if they’re any good, but it’s worth a shot. 

He grabs a few of each and ambles on back to his plane. 

When he returns, Aziraphale is in the same spot as when he left and refuses to look up at him. He dumps the packages unceremoniously into Aziraphale’s lap, and the blond glances down at them, then lifts his head to look up at him, an eyebrow arched in question. “Outdated crisps and boxed pastries? Really?” He merely gives him a shrug. “... Thank you,” He has a begrudging tone, as if it pains him to say the words, but is too polite not to. And he knows that he is, just as Michael knew. “I suppose it is something.” 

He watches in fascination as Aziraphale picks up one of the colorful bags, grabs both smooth sides between his fingers and pulls the top open. “They don’t look or smell bad,” He muses as he pulls one of the flat discs out of the bag between his fingers. “I haven’t had these since this whole thing started,” He places the disk in his mouth, biting down with a crunch, then makes little delighted noises. 

And he is absolutely _fascinated._ He’s faintly aware of his lips being slack as he gazes at the living man. He’s so delighted and it’s intoxicating. He only realizes he’s being weird when Aziraphale looks up at him with a pinched look upon his face. “Dear, there really is no need to stare.” 

Straightening up, he turns. An idea forms in his head, and he heads into the jet’s galley to pull a bottle of wine from one of the cabinets. What better peace offering than alcohol? It was something that Aziraphale and Michael enjoyed doing occasionally, drinking wine together. Michael preferred the harder stuff, but Aziraphale could guzzle wine like no tomorrow, and Michael used to be able to make that sacrifice to be able to drink with his so called beloved. 

He offers the full bottle to the angel, who looks up at him with mild surprise. “You really are quite nice, aren’t you?” He says as he takes the bottle into his own hands. 

_Nice?_ Something about that word prickles at the back of his mind, like he has something to say about that word. Something far from pleasant, but he can’t quite think of what it could be. He can feel his face twitch as he can almost grasp it, but not quite. It’s so close that it’s bothering him. 

Aziraphale unscrews the top of the bottle and lifts it to his lips to take a few long pulls. “Who needs glasses anyway,” He says with a sigh. “I haven’t had wine since this whole thing started either. Here, I feel strange drinking alone, have a sip.” 

Something about the sad look on Aziraphale’s face prompts him to take it, and he lifts the bottle to his lips, letting the bitter liquid wash over his mouth and down his throat. It’s strange, and his face screws up at the flavor. Aziraphale gives a light chuckle as he takes the bottle back in his own hands, and he can feel something close to panic as Aziraphale lifts the bottle back to his lips to take another long pull. 

He doesn’t want Aziraphale to be like him. Bites change the living into the dead, it would only make sense that it was the exchange of bodily fluids that caused the change to happen. He plops down on his backside, feeling guilty as he gazes up at Aziraphale over his glasses. He watches as Aziraphale munches on his crisps and sips on his wine, and notices when his cheeks gain a flushed hue. It truly is lovely, and oh so distracting. “You really are a dear, so much different than the others,” Aziraphale begins to say, “ I wish I had a name to call you by.” 

“Name…!” He perks up. “It’s….”

“You know your name?” Unfocused yet curious blue eyes fix on him.

He nods enthusiastically. “C… Cccccc…?” His brow furrows, and he gazes down at his shoes. It’s so close it hurts. But it’s so… far away at the same time. 

“It starts with a C?” Aziraphale asks. He looks up once more into those blue eyes and gives a single pained nod. 

“Not much of a name, is that?” Aziraphale says with a lazy smile. “I’ll just have to call you ‘dear,’ won’t I?” 

He cocks his head and gives a shrug. 

Aziraphale is quiet as he finishes his bag of crisps, then begins to talk. “I… Feel so guilty. Like I should be inconsolable at the moment. Michael is…” His voice cracks. “He’s dead. I love - loved- him so much. He… Yes, he’s been an arse for the past year or so to me, but it really wasn’t his fault. I know he was trying his best and trying to do all he could to keep everyone safe and alive, and that it was getting to be too much for him, and I know it isn’t really an excuse, but I still loved him. He’s still the one that I thought I would spend forever with. We were… We really were the only family each other had. I suppose now I have Madam Tracy and the troubled kids at the compound to call family, but it still hurts. I miss them just as much as I miss Michael, but I know that they’re safe and alive. They’ll be there to greet me when I make it home, but Michael won’t. Not that he probably would have anyway, but the point still stands. I don’t understand why I feel so numb to the idea.” Aziraphale is quiet once more. 

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. Does he try to comfort him? He doesn’t think that’ll go over very well. On the positive side, he doesn’t see any sign of sickness or change in Aziraphale, and he can smell the sickly sweet odor of intoxication pouring off him in waves. Perhaps a bite was needed to change the living into the dead, or just the violence that goes with it, or the intent. It’s up in the air at this point, and he knows he can’t articulate well enough to bring it up to Aziraphale, not that this would be a good time to do so. 

Aziraphale is quiet for a long while, and eventually he slumps against the window, a few of the packages and the book falling from his lap. 

He just watches the man sleep, enjoying the halo that the sun hitting the man’s curls create.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I’ve decided that the airport they’re at is the London City Airport. And… We’re just gonna pretend the River Thames is a freshwater river. Also, I’m an American that’s never been out of the state of California, so I think I’m doing an okay job. Also!! Are you proud I used the word ‘crisps?’ Cause I am! Why are chips called crisps in the UK anyway? It’s weird (Don’t say a word I know it goes both ways but its still weird).
> 
> As a note that doesn’t add or take away from the story really, it’s my headcanon that the apocalypse began with the zombie deer disease going around the midwest US. Scientists aren’t sure if it can spread to humans or not, and have warned hunters in regions that it has been documented in to not eat the deer, and especially to not eat any deer exhibiting signs of the disease. Luckily, I live on the west coast, so I have not had to deal with this (Not that I’ve had venison since I was like, 5 but the point still stands. My favorite part of camping is the deer, and I like healthy deer to watch okay).

**Author's Note:**

> *Yes, Archangel Michael is this character. I wanted to keep this as much in line with canon characters as I could, and that meant not making up some random man to be Aziraphale’s love interest before Crowley and Gabriel needed to be handy to run the compound (or that would have definitely been him instead because I see the Gabriel/Aziraphale ship has somewhat of a basis, even tho I am 100% without stray for Ineffable Husbands.)
> 
> College, statistics in particular, is kicking my ass, but I'm enjoying writing this and have a bunch to say, so hopefully updates are semi regular.


End file.
